Contract win for Jarvis January 14, 2010 Infrastructure group Jarvis yesterday announced its Jarvis Rail subsidiary has won a £55m contract during 2010, with an option for a second phase of work worth around £36m to begin the following year.
Green warns on quick fixes January 14, 2010 HSBC chairman Stephen Green has warned that quick-fire attempts to impose stricter regulations on financial institutions risk doing more harm than good if they are implemented without due consideration of the consequences. Speaking in an interview ahead of the World Economic Forum conference in Davos later this month, Green said creating a stable financial system [...]
CITY VIEWS: DO YOU BELIEVE THE UK ECONOMY IS OUT OF RECESSION? January 14, 2010 ADE ABIOSE | CAVENDISH WEALTH MANAGEMENT “Personally, I’m still cautious. The main reason for thinking the economy did grow again is the better outlook for property. But I think that was fuelled by home movers pushed by low interest rates, not by first time buyers. We may be edging out, but we’re not clear of [...]
MANDY UNLEASHES HIS SHARP WIT AT BUSINESS FOR EUROPE DEBATE January 14, 2010 IT’S good to know that it’s not only opposition politicians who are subjected to the sting of Lord Mandelson’s acerbic tongue, but members of his own party as well. Mandy was yesterday morning in attendance at City superspinner Roland Rudd’s Business for New Europe event at the grand Victoria Embankment headquarters of investment bank JP [...]
Home owners paying lowest mortgage interest in years January 14, 2010 BARRATT Developments, the housebuilder, yesterday said recent bad weather had led to a flurry of online enquiries as it reported stronger first-half trading, adding to hopes the worst is over for the sector. Chief executive Mark Clare said online enquiries more than doubled in recent weeks as a countrywide cold snap forced many people to [...]
Barclays buys New York market maker LaBrance in a $25m deal January 14, 2010 BARCLAYS is buying New York Stock Exchange market maker LaBranche for $25m (£15.3m). The move means the bank can strengthen its position as the biggest market maker on the index. The deal will also reduce the number of designated market makers (DMM) on the NYSE to just four with electronic systems becoming more widely used. [...]
HOUSING REBOUND January 14, 2010 LUXURY house prices in London bounced back in 2009 as wealthy buyers battled it out for a shrinking supply of homes. According to agent Savills, the average value of houses and flats on the market for more than £1m surged by 8.8 per cent, while prices remain 13 per cent lower than at their 2007 [...]
Economists in dispute over BoE strategy January 14, 2010 ECONOMISTS proved divided over the success of the Bank of England’s quantitative easing (QE) policy at a roundtable hosted by the Bank of England and the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). A summary of the discussion, which took place on 15 December, was released yesterday on the condition that participants were kept anonymous. It [...]
US retail sales slip but revisions likely January 14, 2010 IN SPITE of a weak performance in December, US retail sales are starting to show signs of improvement as consumer confidence begins to return to the world’s largest economy. Fresh data released yesterday showed sales falling 0.3 per cent last month, but this was compared to an upwardly-revised 1.8 per cent November figure and analysts [...]
No change to ECB stance as Greece unveils reforms January 14, 2010 HEADLINE Eurozone interest rates remained on hold yesterday at one per cent as the European Central Bank (ECB) waits for the recovery to become more entrenched before tightening policy further. Last month, the central bank started to withdraw its stimulus by removing unlimited cheap loans to banks. ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet told a press conference [...]